Afghans to carry on stoning criminals

CRIMINALS in Afghanistan will face Taliban-style punishments including amputations and stonings as part of the interim government's drive to keep down crime, the chief justice said yesterday.

The remarks will raise concerns among Western donors who have made the restoration of the rule of law a priority in the shattered country's reconstruction.

Chief Justice Fazul Hadi Shinwari said he wanted adulterers whipped or stoned to death, the hands of robbers amputated and murderers publicly executed. Proselytising Christians may face the death penalty and Muslims who drink alcohol could be given 80 lashes.

Mr Shinwari criticised the Taliban for "turning Islam into a monster", but said: "God says that some people need to be present to witness the punishment as a lesson."

The Taliban regularly held executions and amputations at sports grounds, often interrupting football matches so they would be guaranteed an audience. Offenders and political opponents were hanged from the goalposts.

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Unlike the Taliban system, Mr Shinwari promised that criminals would be fairly investigated and tried. "The charges and the punishment will be dropped if we don't have witnesses and reliable proof," he told Reuters.

Crime has increased since the defeat of the Taliban and a functioning legal system has yet to be re-installed. There have been 80 shootings in Kabul during the past six or seven weeks. Old scores frozen during the Taliban era have been settled and criminal gangs have started to reclaim their territories.

In the capital and other cities armed groups which opposed the Taliban and had a reputation for lawlessness have returned. Many of their heavily armed members are blamed for robberies, extortion and murder.

Supreme court officials said a number of criminals - suspected murderers and robbers among them - had been arrested already and would be publicly punished once legal procedures were completed.

"The main issue here is that infidels or Westerners protest against a hand being chopped for theft," said Mr Shinwari. "But since the robber has committed a crime then he has to be punished for obvious and justified reasons - ridding society of crime." He also warned foreigners against trying to convert Afghans from Islam.

"The Islamic government, according to sharia, is bound to punish those who get involved in anti-Islamic activities," he said. "We can punish them for propagating other religions - such as threaten them, expel them and, as a last resort, execute them, but only with evidence."

It remains to be seen whether the 67-year-old chief justice's wishes will be be put into practice. There is likely to be a struggle between radical Islamists in the new government and more liberal figures such as its leader, Hamid Karzai, who would favour a more Western-style legal system while preserving the country's Islamic integrity and culture.

His legal model would lean more towards a modern Muslim-majority state such as Malaysia rather than the draconian Saudi Arabia. The Bonn agreement which created the interim authority leaves plenty of room for argument.

It says the "domestic justice system" should be rebuilt "in accordance with Islamic principles, international standards, the rule of law and Afghan legal traditions".